Directed Attention Fatigue
Directed attention fatigue (DAF) is a neurological phenomenon that results from overuse of the brain’s inhibitory attention mechanisms, which handle incoming distractions while maintaining focus on a specific task. The greatest threat to a given focus of attention is competition from other stimuli that can cause a shift in focus. This is because one maintains focus on a particular thought not by strengthening that particular mental activity, but by inhibiting all potential distractions. A temporary condition, DAF occurs when a particular part of the brain’s global inhibitory system is overworked due to the suppression of increasing numbers of stimuli. Directed attention fatigue is not a clinical illness or a personality disorder. It is rather a temporary fatigue of the inhibitory mechanisms in the brain. According to inhibition theory, it is natural for one to alternate between periods of attention and distraction. Although one’s efforts may involve very different tasks, each incoming stimulus calls upon the same directed attention mechanism.
Read more about Directed Attention Fatigue: Stress Vs. Mental Fatigue, Anatomy, Onset, Symptoms, Treatment, Link To ADHD, Research
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“Croft had an instinctive knowledge of land, sensed the stresses and torsions that had first erupted it, the abrasions of wind and water. The platoon had long ceased to question any direction he took; they knew he would be right as infallibly as sun after darkness or fatigue after a long march.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)